


Pursuits of Power

by Vrunka



Category: Devil May Cry
Genre: Frottage, M/M, One-sided Pining Nero/Dante, Potential Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-27
Updated: 2019-03-27
Packaged: 2019-12-18 16:15:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,458
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18253376
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vrunka/pseuds/Vrunka
Summary: “When a sinister person means to become your enemy, they always start by trying to be your friend.”Or Nero doesn’t read a lot of Blake and maybe that’s a good thing.





	Pursuits of Power

**Author's Note:**

> Imagine a shrug emoji. I’m not tagging incest cuz I’m not actively trying to spoil anyone and also cuz it’s not something that’s discussed or brought up in this plot

“Calm down,” V says. Like he’s a voice of reason, like he has any idea what Nero is going through. Like he understands.

“That bastard,” Nero hisses. “That asshole Dante thinks he—“

“Thinks he’s what, better than you?”

Yes. “No!” Nero can feel himself shaking. All that rage, pent up and folding over in his gut. It used to itch in his arm, would flutter and shiver where the pulse ran all weird and demony. Now it’s homeless spreading too warm and uncomfortable at the base of his spine. “He called me dead weight.”

“In the state you’re in, don’t you think that’s an accurate assessment,” V asks. Still so calm. Glacial. The van lurches and jostles with Nico’s driving and V barely flinches.

“It’s not like I asked that dickwad to steal my goddamn arm, you know.”

Something in V’s expression shifts. Nero doesn’t know him well enough to identify exactly what, or what it means. “I know you didn’t,” he says. His fingers tighten on the top of his cane, white-knuckled. Then he relaxes. He sits back. “What are you gonna do about that anyway? Rolling in with nothing certainly didn’t work out in our favor.”

Nero touches the stump. His stump. The folded sleeve of his coat does nothing to dull the sting. The violation of it.

“He’s not gonna do anything,” Nico interjects before Nero can say anything. He was sort of wondering where her two cents on the whole matter went, not like her to let a conversation happen without some input. “I’m cooking up something big, broody, don’t you worry that pretty emo head of yours about it.”

“Broody?” V scoffs, half-under his breath. Nico probably doesn’t hear it over Nero’s own, “What are you even talking about?”

He can see her eyes, flitting between the two of them in the rear view and he hears himself saying, “Nico, the road—“ she wrenches the wheel, their course reverts.

“What d’ya mean what am I talking about,” she says. She lifts a hand from the wheel and takes a drag off her cigarette. “I’m gonna make you an arm, obviously.”

“Obviously,” Nero echoes.

V crosses his legs. Not as much flourish in the motion as when Dante does it, no dramatic flair, no extra stretch to really drive home the length and leanness of those fucking legs, but still. Something in the motion Nero just can’t shake. Can’t ignore or write off. If V notices the scrutiny, he doesn’t say so. “That’s no small order,” he is saying to Nico, “building something like that. All those nerves, all those delicate functions.”

“Didn’t I just tell ya not to worry your head over it,” Nico says. Slightly slurred, Nero knows without looking that the cigarette is resting on her bottom lip. “Here you’d think you don’t know how to listen, V.”

V grins. He twirls his cane on his lap, staring down at the motion. Watching his own fingers as he flips it and flips it.

“Where are you gonna go,” Nero asks.

V looks up. His grin only falters for a second, dropping away before sliding back into place. “I don’t know. I have...” he trails off. He glances away.

“You can come with us,” Nero offers. “Kyrie doesn’t mind the company and I-I—fuck I dunno. It’s not like you can go back to Dante’s place.”

Dante. Even just the name brings with it that resurgence of anger. Buzzing humiliation. A whole snarled mess of emotions. They left Dante there, probably to die. They left him there and Dante told them to because Nero is—

His hand—only hand, one now, only one, Jesus—clenches on his knee.

“That’s a very generous offer,” V says.

“Not really,” Nero says. “Easier to keep an eye on you if you’re close, right?”

V chuckles. His eyes are half-lidded, lazy like a cat when he says, “Now that sounds like something Dante would say.”

“I’m not like Dante.”

“No,” V agrees. “You’re not.”

—

Kyrie takes to him immediately, much to Nero’s chagrin. He had kind of been hoping she’d hate him, request that he stay elsewhere. But she’s too kind for all that, too trusting. Even after everything she’s been through, she’s still so good. It’s what Nero loves about her, will always love about her.

She’s incorruptible. Pure and good and wholesome.

“It’s so nice to meet you,” she says, clasping V’s hand, guiding him into the house. “Here, please, come have a seat.”

V smiles (it’s stiff, too toothy, Nero’s getting better at this shit) and sits when she leads him over to the couch.

“You’re a friend of Dante’s?” she asks.

“Uh. You could say that. I hired him for a—“

“For the Redgrave shit-storm,” Nero cuts in.

“Language,” Kyrie says.

“Yeah, Nero, watch your fuckin’ mouth,” Nico adds. Kyrie gives her a pointed look and Nico shrugs with a sheepish grin. “Look this is real sweet and all, but I got a lotta work to start on so...I’ll uhh. I’ll be in the garage. I guess.”

“You need a ha—help? Any help,” Nero asks. Regrets it immediately. The way her gaze sticks to him over the slip. There’s pity there, she usually isn’t so transparent with it. Hides it under sarcasm and vulgar wit.

“Not really,” she says. “I’ll need measurements in a bit, but I gotta check my materials first. Tweak my schematics.”

“Oh. Right. Okay.”

She props a hand on her hip, bites her lip. “You can come if you want,” she says. Offered as a consolation. She has no need for him in the garage.

He would only be in the way.

Nero bites his own lip so hard it aches, digs his teeth in until the psychical sting overtakes the one of his ego. “No,” he says, forces himself to say. Calmly and not through his teeth at all. “It’s fine. Let me know when you need me. I’m gonna take a...rest.”

“I could do with a rest as well,” V says from the couch. Nero had almost forgotten he was there at all, so paper-thin and ghostlike.

“He can use my bed,” Kyrie offers.

“I couldn’t—“ V starts to say.

“He shouldn’t—“ Nero is saying at the exact same time.

“It’s really no problem, I’ll bunk with Nico, right, N?” Kyrie says. Smiling. Angelic. She’s so perfect and it isn’t fair.

Nico blinks, nods. “Oh, course, Kyrie.”

Kyrie claps her hands together, nods. “Perfect,” she says. “It’s settled. Nero, if can you show our guest to his room, I’ll start on dinner. I’ll wake you both when it’s ready.”

“If you’re sure,” V says.

“I am very sure, Mister V.”

“Just V is fine.”

“V then.” She touches his arm, fingers resting against his shoulder. “Go ahead and get some sleep. You both look like you need it.”

She’s probably right.

Nero feels the weight of the past few hours like a shackle about his feet. A dragging down, down, down in his gut, on his shoulders. Forcing him in on himself. His stump hurts, tactile vibrations from the nerves every time he takes a breath.

“Follow me,” he says and V stands.

He’s leaning pretty heavily on that cane of his. Maybe he’s feeling that same weight. Spectacular failure has its own pressure.

The stairs are the last big hurdle before Nero can face blissful oblivion. He and V both stare at them for a moment longer than necessary before dragging themselves up them. V’s cane clunks heavily against the wood.

“Two beds,” V says, when they’re up there. Kyrie has made Nero’s while he was gone, tucked in the sheets, fluffed the pillows.

“I don’t owe you an explanation.”

“I wasn’t asking for one.”

Nero swallows. He makes short work of shedding his coat; kicking off his boots is another story entirely. One-handed the motion is choppy, teetering. His stump pinwheels as he rips at the laces, his body sways.

V’s hand touches his back, steadies him.

Nero can’t quite find the venom he wants when he says, “Don’t touch me.”

“Okay.”

It isn’t. None of it is. Everything’s gone to shit. Everything has quite literally gone to hell. And here Nero is, laying in bed and staring at the same ceiling he always has and listening to someone who is not Kyrie breathing.

“Does it hurt still?” V asks.

“No.”

“I see.” V says. ‘I don’t believe you,’ his tone says. “His opinion means a lot to you.”

Oh, they were talking about that. Dead weight. Nero’s fingers dig into his palm.

“I already told you, I’m not like Dante. I don’t want to be. He’s-he’s outdated. He’s last year’s model.”

“He’s fighting for our lives in the belly of that tree.”

Nero closes his eyes. “I know,” he says.

“If he fails then you, Nero, will be our last glimmer of hope to right the wrong of it.”

“Last resort, my favorite place to be. A desperate fucking bid. You know you can say it that way, V. Everyone else is.”

“I’d think of it more as our best last chance.”

“Sugar coating isn’t helping me trust you.”

“I don’t see that you have any choice but to trust me,” V says. “The world depends on it.”

“I know.”

“Dante depends on it.”

“I said I know.”

“Does he know?”

Nero’s eyes snap open. The ceiling he has known for years, unchanged above him. White and nondescript, no marks, no damage. Nero glares up at it. “What are you talking about?”

“You and Kyrie sleep in separate beds. You love her very much but there is five feet of uncrossable space here. Does Dante know he is the reason for that?”

“Fuck off,” Nero hisses. He sits up. Five feet away V is doing the same. Leaning against the headboard, studying him. “How—you can’t just assume you know anything about-about me. About Kyrie.”

“Are you going to tell me I’m wrong?”

“I don’t have to tell you shit!”

V smiles. He moves like liquid, undulating, unreal. A mirage, shimmering in the dark, his white flesh, his tattoos. Glimmering rings, the studs on his bracelet are blinding. His hand touches Nero’s chest, fingers spread. Nero can feel his own heartbeat, racing beneath V’s palm.

“You don’t know anything about me,” Nero says.

“No? I’m pretty good at guessing though. Inferring. Reading between the lines, you might say. You need to trust me, I need the connection, this can be symbiotic, beneficial for the both of us.”

“You aren’t Dante.”

V’s smile is wry, curling the way a cat cornering the canary would smile. Cunning. Nero hasn’t noticed until now just how calculating that smile is. How sharp. “I’m not Dante,” V says. “But there isn’t anything stopping you from pretending.”

“You aren’t...”

“We have more in common than you’d think, perhaps,” V says. Leaning close. So close his lips brush Nero’s forehead. “Consider this an absolution, an apology. You want an apology, don’t you?”

He is wrong. Nero shakes his head but the movement is weak, lacks conviction, crumbling under the weight of how long it has been since someone touched him. Gently, the way V is now, caressing Nero’s breastbone, dragging up and down the line of it. He wants acknowledgement, to be thought of and recognized and wanted. It’s all he’s ever wanted. To be something to Dante. Someone.

“But why me? Wh-why like this?”

“Because I know what it’s like to lose something precious, something that has defined so much of what you are. I know how it feels to have that...ripped from you. And I empathize.”

“What did you—“

“I could go into it, or I could fuck you. We’re short on time here, Nero. Running shorter every second.”

Nero shakes his head again, shudders and gasps when V brushes over his nipple. He hisses when V repeats the motion, more purposeful, tweaking the fabric and pebbling flesh beneath.

“Our cravings are so base, so easy,” V muses. “Human desires.” V’s fingers squeeze and roll and Nero should be embarrassed by the groan that escapes his throat at that but he can’t be. The feelings are welling up in him too quickly. Clogging his senses. “How long has it been since someone touched you this way, Nero?”

“Never,” he says, and what he means is never a man. Never Kyrie, their physical relationship has always been more traditional than this.

“Really? ‘Those who restrain their desires, do so because theirs is weak enough to be restrained’,” V says. He sounds pleased, smug, more than just his usual haughty tone. Nero feels his cheeks heat; his hand finds V’s wrist, ensnares it. The bones are so thin and fragile and breakable. V is so small, so deceptively minuscule. Yet he’s reduced Nero to this panting, worked up mess. “Poor Nero.”

“Don’t—don’t do that,” Nero says. “I don’t want you to be...” He can’t say it, he can say it, he does, “I don’t need you to be Dante.”

V’s gaze flicks over his face, considering. His free hand shoves Nero’s thighs apart, as he situates himself more fully between them. “Very well then. Take your shirt off.” He plucks at Nero’s belt, slips the tips of his fingers between Nero’s waistband and his heated skin. “These too while you’re at it.”

“Pushy, pushy,” Nero says, rolling his eyes. But he obeys.

He isn’t sure why. Yeah, he’s horny but it’s never been a problem before. Not an overwhelming one at least. Nothing that couldn’t be handled with his own, well, hand. But V is offering.

Symbiotic he had called it, so he’s obviously getting something out of it as well.

Something that makes his eyes glitter and his lips curl as Nero tugs the sweater over his head and tosses it to the side. Unbalanced. The bandaged end of his stump jerks with remembered motions. V and Nero both stare at it.

“I’m sorry,” V says. He doesn’t quite touch, his fingers hover.

Nero shakes his head. “Can we not focus on it,” he asks.

“You’re right, there are much better things to focus on,” V says. His hand moves, drops from almost touching Nero’s arm to instead following the curves of the muscles of his chest. Tracing the dip of his obliques to the edge of his already hardened nipple.

Nero hisses as skin-to-skin V pinches the nipple between his knuckles. V licks his thumb, presses that to the other side, scraping his moist nail across the pebbled skin. Goosebumps in the wake of where he touches, drawing, aching warmth curling in Nero’s chest. He arches his back into V’s grip, holds his weight on his shoulders as he tears at his belt with his hand.

“You’re so sensitive,” V says. Not teasing the way he had been before but stating the fact in that murmured way he has about him. Like his own words are poetry. Like he is quoting something deeper.

“Shut up,” Nero says anyway. “Help me with this.”

He means the belt. He gets the whole deal. V’s hands leave him to rip the belt free of his jeans, undoing the button and the zipper with decidedly sure motions. His fingers are cool when they press against the arousal warmed skin of Nero’s belly, following the lines of his abdomen down into the loosened plackets of his jeans.

He’s watching Nero’s face as he grips Nero’s cock at the base. As he maneuvers it free from underwear and jeans. It’s half-hard, respectably plump in V’s slender fingers. A contrast between them. Nero can feel V’s gaze on his cheeks, but he can’t tear himself away from the sight of V’s hand stroking up and down his cock.

Another contrast; priorities or some shit.

“Does it feel good,” V asks. Mildly. Like he is a voice of reason again and this is something reasonable and not pure madness given form.

Nero swallows. His fingers scrabble and squeeze for purchase in the sheets. Phantom itches of the motion in his right arm, remembered, gone now—fuck.

“You’re—you can do it harder,” Nero says, angling his hips.

Tighter.

Something.

V bites his lip as he grins. “As you wish,” he says. “I want this to be good for you too, Nero,” he says. He leans forward, the dangling lapels of his coat tickle at Nero’s waist. V’s thighs press tight to the back of Nero’s, keeping Nero spread, keeping him open and on display.

Nero can feel the ache of it in his hip already, knows it’ll only get worse when they really get into it, but he’s young and he’s wanted this—something like this only white-haired and brash and significantly older—for too long. The present pain helps keep his mind off of his arm, his loss, his terrible violation.

“Let’s get these off you,” V says and his hand leaves Nero’s cock to push down his jeans. He backs up, dragging them down Nero’s legs until they are free. Then he tosses them away.

And he tosses his own shabby coat away and god, fuck, he is so very skinny. Frail-chested. Rattling ribs and knobby elbows. Nero had known, of course he had known, but something about the way V displayed it so openly made it invisible. The lacquered black swirls on his alabaster skin serve to hide how truly, truly scrawny he is.

“Are you okay,” Nero asks before he can stop himself. A good guy underneath all the bullshit he puts forth.

V’s head tips to the side. His thick, dark hair obscures half his expression. “I’m fine, Nero.”

“Kyrie’s gonna make it her mission to fatten you up, you know?”

V’s hand touches his own stomach, fingers spread across his skinny, trembling abs. Born from a lack of fat rather than muscular definition. “I don’t think I’ll be here long enough for that.”

“Are you gonna leave?”

“Is this really the time to talk about this, Nero?”

When they’re naked, an honesty that comes with the territory, the vulnerability. “I guess not,” Nero says and V steps out of his own pants. For a moment Nero looks away, decency and years of Order conduct ingrained too deeply in him to stare. But his gaze falls to where his arm is not, where nothing is, a his gut gives a sick little twinge so he looks back.

For all his lankiness, lithe muscles and slim wrists, V has a very nice cock. Proportionate to the whole. Nero stares. He swallows.

“I told you you may be surprised to find how much we have in common,” V says. His tone is dry but there is something like laughter folded into the corners of it. Levity.

Nero holds his hand out and V takes it, slides back into the place he had previously occupied. His thighs are cool and dry as they press up into Nero’s. His long fingers intertwined so effortlessly with Nero’s own. In this position, their cocks bump messily against one another, sparks of white arousal simmering in Nero’s gut with each blunt collision. V’s cock is longer than his own, almost as thick, satisfyingly firm every time they brush together. V’s hips flex, slowly, keeping up a rhythm, and Nero can hear himself, groaning lightly at every deliberate pass.

“Seeing you like this makes me feel powerful, Nero,” V says, head rolled to the side to say it right into Nero’s ear. His lips are dry, scraping against the skin, stubble on his chin dragging down Nero’s throat. Sensations and sensations, Nero shudders, turns his head to nuzzle his nose against V’s cheek.

“Don’t tease, you fuckin’ asshole,” he grits between his teeth.

“Not teasing. It’s why I’m doing it. Look at you, Nero, look at what I can do to you. Intoxicating isn’t it?”

Nero does look, glances down the line of their bodies to where V is grasping their cocks together. Nimble fingers wrapped around them both as they rut in a lazy, slow-building wave. Not the desperate, mindless fucking of horny teenagers that neither of them are; this is something more deliberate.

Calculated.

Sweat has begun to spring up along Nero’s brow from the torturous pace. Little droplets along his pecs and where their thighs are rubbing. He swallows, shaking, and can feel it trickling from his hairline, rolling down his chin and his Adam’s apple.

“Give it to me, V,” he says and where their hands are still touching he can feel V’s fingers twitch. “I can take it.”

“Can you?”

“I’m not weak,” Nero says. “I’m not—,”

“You don’t have to prove to me that you aren’t dead weight,” V says. He lifts himself slightly, changes the angle that he’s rubbing them at, twisting so he can thrust more fully. More closely. He pushes tighter and Nero lifts his leg to help, resting his shin on V’s whipcord shoulder.

The pace is suddenly punishing, breakneck, full strokes that have Nero gasping, arching. The act of breathing is a chore, shuddering, thin inhales, each exhale punctuated and reedy. V holds his ankle with one hand, keeps their cocks flattened against Nero’s belly with the other. Proficient.

Powerful.

“Is it good,” he asks. Out of breath himself. Thin chest rising and falling dramatically with his breathing.

Nero nods. Chokes over an inhale he can’t quite swallow down, tongue dry and too big for his mouth. “Good,” he manages. “V, its—,”

It’s too good, and it’s gonna end too quickly.

On edge for too long, held back for too long. Nero hasn’t done anything like this in what feels like months. Kyrie has respected his need for space, hasn’t asked questions or pressured him.

And V was right, Nero needed this. The connection, the feeling of another body bearing down on his own. Of someone else’s sweat and precome slip-sliding against him.

Nero’s hand lifts, grabs at V’s unburdened shoulder. He tugs V down—his own waist bending almost double, knee by his ear, body protesting the stretch—and presses his lips sloppily into V’s own. There’s no finesse in it to begin with and even less when everything sudders apart with Nero’s orgasm. The wake of it leaves him gasping, open-mouthed, breathing V’s air, feeding it back.

“Shit,” he mutters.

“It’s okay.”

“I was—that is I—,”

“It’s okay, Nero,” V says. He straightens, lets Nero’s leg down. The muscles sing, thrumming a tune Nero isn’t used to except after a really tough battle. His belly and crotch is a mess. Streaks of semen in the hair, sweat and V’s cum as well.

V’s dick is still hard, bobbing and red at the head. Unfinished. Nero takes a breath. He reaches out and grazes his fingers along it. V’s answering groan is enough encouragement for Nero to sit up, get a better angle. He brackets V’s hips with his knees, holds him steady while he strokes V’s cock. V’s hands in his hair, V’s hands on his face, stroking his brow, tracing his jaw.

Soft and intimate. Careful and sweet.

“I’ve got you,” Nero says. He means it. Whatever V is, whatever V knows, Nero trusts him. He has him. They are in this together.

V flinches. He exhales sharply. His hips stutter up into Nero’s hand as Nero draws back, keeping his grip closer to the head, thumb against the bundle of nerves right against the crown.

When he comes, it isn’t a big or dramatic affair. His fingers spasm in Nero’s hair, his thin body goes taut, brittle, so tight for a second Nero fears he may just snap in half. Then Nero’s hand is sodden, and V is melting against him, collapsing forward. His slight weight isn’t enough to tip them over, but Nero lets the motion carry him backwards anyway. He wipes his hand on the sheet before stroking it through V’s hair.

“You okay?”

“I’ll survive,” V says. Voice muffled in Nero’s throat. Vibrations of his breathing, thrumming beneath Nero’s skin. “Thank you, Nero.”

“You don’t gotta thank me.”

“You’re right,” V says, sitting up. He untangles his legs from Nero’s, his arms shaking from where they are holding his weight. Nero steadies him with a hand on his waist. The raised skin, puckered just slightly still, makes the tattoos feel fresh. Nero traces one absently. “It’s not what this was about.”

“You gonna tell me what it was about? What I’m expected to do now?”

“Do?” V swallows, he grins. It crawls slowly across his face, more tired than before. Fuckin’ exhausted. “You get stronger, Nero. This was about...about getting stronger. I believe you can do it.”

“I’m gonna kill that arm-stealing bastard.”

“Perhaps.” He slips out from under Nero’s arm. Sits at the edge of the bed for a moment, before standing, shakily. Muscles of his thighs and back trembling and jumping as he moves.

“Are you really leaving?”

“There is much to prepare, Nero. A lot of things we both must do before we will be ready to descend into that hell again.”

He’s dressing as he says it. He grabs his pants from where he had dropped them. He drapes his coat over his shoulders but does not bother to lace it.

“At least stay for dinner. Kyrie would—I want you to.”

V seems to consider, he makes no move toward his cane or his shoes both of which are propped by the door.

“Gotta make sure you’re taking care of yourself, if we’re...if we’re gonna have the strength to get through this?” Nero says.

V sniffs, he pushes his bangs back with the heel of his palm, runs the grip to the back of his neck and squeezes. Nero can see the way his knuckles flex and tighten from here.

“You have a point,” he says. He sits on the other bed. Lowers himself onto it. If Nero didn’t know better he would think that the sigh that slips past V’s lips speaks volumes about his relief.

“You can rest,” Nero says. “I’ll wake you for dinner. Everything else...everything else we can figure out from there.”

“Maybe I was wrong,” V says. His eyes are already closed, his belly moves with his breathing, easily visible from where his jacket has fallen open. “Maybe you’re not that different at all.”

“You mean that,” Nero asks.

But V is already asleep, nostrils flaring, eyelids fluttering.

Nero leans back, folds his arm behind his head and stares up at the ceiling. Get stronger. He can do that. Get stronger, save Dante, save the world. His fingers clench in his hair. He isn’t dead weight.

He’s so much more than that.

And he’ll prove that to Dante, one way or a-goddamn-nother.

**Author's Note:**

> Come see me on twit @drunkavrunka, join me in Dmc5 hell :)


End file.
